Pirate Campaign: Zodiac

I’m running a 5e quarantine campaign for a couple of mates. That means blog content!

We’ve had two sessions so far, and I’ve just drafted up a GM’s Oracle for the campaign. I think the most useful thing here for you as readers is for me to briefly run through the process of making it before I share the end result.

I’ve been reading a lot (a lot) of One Piece during isolation. Could go into a whole rant here about how it’s maybe the best current example of pulp fantasy fiction, and therefore an absolute treasure trove for GMs looking for inspiration, but I don’t want to have to tag this post as “weeaboo nonsense”. Point is, I asked my group if they’d be up for a pirate campaign.

Had a chat about what kind of campaign we were feeling (5e, heroic, starting at level 10), left them to do characters and prepped a prison break as an intro. After two very dramatic sessions, they’re on a stolen navy ship, bound north to the Tropic of Storms (basically the Grand Line from One Piece), my excuse for some island-hopping pirate adventure.

All the “world building” I’d done so far was all the building a world for a tabletop adventure game needs - justification for the adventures and locations the player characters come across to inform their actions and lend them weight and consequences.

Decided on a GM’s oracle to help structure my writing for future sessions, and bring the players in on world building a bit. The concept for this one is a d8 table of constellations, with each zodiac entry being something of an in-universe god or spiritual force.

I let the two players each come up with their own entry, asking them what fictional star sign they reckon Might suit their characters, and elaborated on their ideas. Zantor (real name not given), the smooth-talking necromancer with ideas above his station, was born under the Doctor, a death-like figure who oversees life and death equally. Bradwood, the painfully easygoing half-water-genie monk, was born under the Eye, this setting’s “god of storms”.

Taking those as the first two entries in the table, I fleshed out the rest of the eight entries. Table and notes below.

	Zodiac	Sea of...	Symbol
1	The Doctor	Death	Skull & Crossbones
2	The Maw	Feasts	Teeth/ mouth/ a shark’s tooth, or a whirlpool/spiral
3	The Rope	Trials	The Bound Arm (upright forearm with rope twisted round it, grasped in a fist)
4	The Flute	Beasts	Traditional ocarina/flute
5	The Magician	Falsehoods	Inverted diamond/gem
6	The Cross	Bounty	An “X”
7	The Eye	Storms	Eye
8	The Newborn	Rebirth	A star (depicted inverted in modern times), or a black circle (the new moon)

So.

- the “sea” thing is kind of like a god’s “domain”, but also refers to a literal sea along the Tropic (which is like the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn irl, a band of sea around the world). Exception is the Newborn, whose physical domain has been turned into an artificial landmass.

- this leads in to something I’ve had fun doing with this, which is retrofitting pirate-y terms and legends into this world. So, since only seven of the zodiac entries have literal oceans associated, we get the phrase “seven seas”.

- Some more of these because they’re fun - the eight Zodiac entries are the “pieces of eight”, the Doctor’s symbol gives us the pirate flag, the “X” symbol representing the Cross and the Sea of Bounty gives us “X marks the spot”... Also the Newborn doesn’t have a literal constellation in the sky, but is for babies born under a new moon - the black circle gives us the legend of the black spot.

- More on the physical seas - they run in order west to east, with the line between the Sea of Death and the Sea of Rebirth being this setting’s equivalent of the GMT meridian line. That’s what the antagonist global naval government is called too, the Meridian.

- There’s another column on the table, the seven pirate lords called the Seven Dragons, one associated with each sea (and the Admiral of the Meridians for the Sea of Rebirth), but... spoilers.

This table’s going to be used for inspiration as I come up with new adventures, and for whenever I need a spark of an idea while running the game. As discussed in my GM’s Oracle post, using this table as the basis for the campaign should tie the whole thing together thematically. Mostly though, I’m happy with the structure I’ve given the world. All those details flowed naturally from the base of this table, and the whole thing took like half an hour to devise.

I ran the first two sessions before writing this. Let’s see how things go from here now that I have an Oracle to fall back on!

Our Story So Far

Our heroes, having played their trade in the remote south-eastern seas up to 10th level, started this game just south of the Sea of Death, in waters patrolled by lower-level Meridians and local pirate gangs. They want a ship to take them north to the Tropic of Storms, each with their own impossible quest - Zantor wants to find the Fountain of Youth, and Bradwood seeks his father, a legendary water genie.

We start in Roguetown, in a dingy pirate bar. They meet Johnny Fishbreath, who until recently served on a ship in the Tropic - his captain, Cpt. Calhoun, is being held in a Meridian maximum security prison called Heaven’s Gate, awaiting execution.

After much posturing from Zantor, Johnny agrees to sail them close to the prison, but no further. Bradwood swims ahead, and, finding no guards outside, gives the signal to Zantor to approach in a boat.

A daring prison break ensues. Lots of fighting and sneaking, some choice spells were cast. A big monster. You should’ve been there.

A few details about the setting are learned - the team seems particularly interested in the 108 Poisons, legendary venoms that grant the infected great power at a price, as seen in the prison’s Warden (who very nearly killed Zantor before he was Bigby’s Hand-ed to fuck).

Our heroes are now on the run on a stolen Meridian ship under Captain Calhoun, their new crewmates her fellow inmates. They sail north, for the Tropic of Storms, and adventure, now branded as pirates.

Ice and Steam (a 5e Encounter)

Haven't shared much of my current 5e campaign's content, mainly because my notes consist of random scribblings and d6 tables written on the way to each session. That's about as much as I prep these days.

Last session though, I had occasion to design an Actual Tactical Combat Encounter. Grid map and everything! Again, just something I made up on the fly an hour before the game started, but I like it and I reckon there are bits here you lovely folk might be able to steal.

References to my campaign's setting are for my own amusement, you may obviously adapt them to your liking


Ice and Steam - a 5e Encounter for characters of roughly Level 3

The players can enter the cave from the south on their way through the Ice Path. It would provide a good shelter from bandits or a sudden blizzard, and if they are searching for something on this route then they will likely want to check it anyway.

Heck, they're D&D players. It's a cave. They'll want to go in.

forgive the scribbles, and the photography. i am a Writer

The snowdrift comes into the cave entrance a few feet, then stops. The inside is still bitter cold (creatures not used to cold or dressed appropriately* must save vs exhaustion every hour in this weather). A rocky outcropping part-blocks the path before the cavern opens up.

The ceiling is about 10ft up and covered in icicles. The floor is frosty, except for under the red pipe that emerges from the cave wall, about 3ft off the ground, and continues to the far end, disappearing once more into the rock.

There are patches of ice (difficult terrain) on the floor (that's what those shaded bits are supposed to be).

The pipe is red not through paint or the type of metal, but the superheated steam within. (Travellers from Arcadia Pits will know this, having seen the pipe's origin in the second reservoir.) Contact with the pipe causes 2d4 fire damage per round. It's high enough off the ground that a gnome could walk under, but anyone taller would have to roll acrobatics to duck or roll as they move. There's also enough space above the pipe to move freely over it.

The two northern tunnels lead to eisengor nests. The left one has a further hole at the back that leads up and out of the cave.

The big tunnel opening to the left is an ice slide almost 100ft long that descends into a lower cavern Here is the frozen body of the man the party was tasked with finding, Nabokov.


Eisengor

Inside the main cave are 1d4 eisengor. The rest are nesting in the top-left or top-right caverns, and will come if another eisengor flees to fetch them. (Total no. of monsters is whatever you deem appropriate to the number of party members - I went with 4 apiece which was challenging but very doable.)

Picture the monsters from Attack the Block, but reverse the colours (white fur, black teeth), and scale them up by like 3 times. Big ol' yeti-gorilla boys. Their arms are longer and more muscular than their short legs, and their hands are huge, padded and clawed, with opposable thumbs. They know the pipe is hot and are smart enough to avoid it.

Medium creature
Alignment: is an artefact of a single D&D campaign and has no inherent bearing on the modern game
AC 14, HP 32, Movement 50ft
High Str, decent Wis - use Lion stats from the PHB if you need them for saves etc
CR: is nonsense
XP: not today, Satan

Attacks
Claw: +5 to hit,  melee, 1d6+3 damage
Bite: +5 to hit, melee, 1d8+3 damage
Icicle Throw: +3 to hit, 15ft range, 1d10 damage, DC 13 dex save vs being knocked prone.

Abilities
Multiattack: 2 attacks on its turn
Charge: If an eisengor uses at least 20ft of movement and then attacks, the target makes a DC 13 Strength save on a hit. If they fail they are knocked prone.
Savage: may use a free action to make a Bite attack against a prone enemy once per turn
Grasping Claws: If an eisengor makes two claw attacks against the same target in a turn and they both hit, the target must make a DC 13 Strength save or become restrained. While an eisengor has a target restrained it cannot use its claw attacks, but all Bite attacks are instant criticals and deal d10 damage
Ice Climber: An eisengor can use icicles or other cave features to hang and swing, monkey-like. They ignore terrain and obstacles below them while swinging. (As long as they are about 10ft up or less they're still in melee range because they're so big, but the space right under them is considered usable by other creatures if it's empty.)



*appropriate dress varies... the ogres up-mountain seem to be content with scraps of fur, while if a human came here without a dose of sun oil they'd freeze in an instant. The wrestler Icarus Armageddon, known to his friends as Odeir, doesn't seem to feel the cold either...

Bell Peppers and Beef

I like how money works in RPGs - as in, it just kinda does. You start poor and then do missions and get a bit richer - now you can buy better gear to do more missions! You get to see those numbers go up, and with them your characters' social standing and potential to get cool stuff.

It's like real life capitalism, except you don't have to worry about millions of people and the planet they live on being systemically crushed by the relentless pursuit of a few chosen individuals' personal gain! Huzzah! Money is one of those things, like conversation, that you don't really need to abstract through mechanics in a tabletop game because you can just play out the real thing at the table, or else handwave it as needed.

But for the new 5e game I'm starting with some friends, tallying gold and copper just didn't seem ideal. It wouldn't fit the tone, for a few fairly arbitrary reasons, the biggest one being that this campaign takes inspiration from Cowboy Bebop. 

(I almost launched into a Cowboy Bebop treatise here, so this little aside is me barely managing to stop myself from ranting about one of the greatest TV series - not just in sci fi or animation, but of any medium or genre - of all time. If you've never watched Bebop... Watch Bebop. Just... Just watch it.)

I figured our heroes in this setting weren't the classic B/X gold-for-XP murder hobos, as much as I love that conceit. Nor were they 5e's archetypical fantasy rag-tag do-gooders who maybe buy a boat. These are people under constant systemic and societal pressure, worn down by a world that works against them at every turn, struggling to survive through loopholes and dirty tricks - drifters in a cosmic race that threatens to overturn their unstable lives of they ever, for even a second, stop running. They won't ever get rich, and if they do they'll die trying.

Also I thought it would be cool to have scenes of them sipping coffee in a hazy neon jazz club or eating ramen from a street stall between jobs, and I didn't want to undercut that with "ok, everyone cross off 2 copper". Money is a background feature in this world, a system first and a tangible gameable thing a distant second.

But at the same time, this isn't a storygame, and spending power means something to the way players approach challenges. I want to give them the satisfaction of earning something from a job (on top of the best thing to earn from adventures which is fictional positioning, and the second best which is levels and items and stuff), even if it's quickly ripped away again. Money and how it relates to the characters' place in this world is interesting and gameable, and I want it to have weight. I also wanna reinforce the "just one more job" cycle of play that RPGs excel at anyway.

So, I cooked up a little something with what I had and ran it by my players. They agreed it was a good idea - a session in and it's working nicely so far.

Here's my Bell Peppers and Beef (and hold the beef) Financial Abstraction Mechanic. Or as I half-jokingly call it, the Poverty Roll. Kind of a variant on "usage die" mechanics.

The crew has a shared Money stat of 1-20, most likely starting at a 0 or 1 given the implied flavour. Gritter games can use a lower top end to the scale; 1-10, or 8 even.

Each completed mission earns the players 1, 2, or occasionally even 3 points depending on the fiction.

Every time the players:
- spend a day shopping or the night at an inn. Y'know, an in-game day where they make general, normal purchases
- make a significant purchase (relatively speaking, I'm thinking like a magic sword or a big bribe) or otherwise spend more than usual for the day
- take a long rest (1 week in this setting as per the 5e DMG's variant rule)
- other relevant expenditure as decided by the GM

They roll a die, dX, where X is the highest integer that is lower than their current Money stat and is also a die type available at the table - or a d4 if the stat is 1-3. (d2 also possible I guess.)

On a 1, they lose 1 from their Money stat.

At 0 Money, they have no purchasing power and must take a job before they can buy anything.

Try it out! Try not to think too hard about how it mirrors real life financial struggle and the world is a cyberpunk hellscape ✌️

The True Elemental Planes

Mike Schley's map of the Elemental Planes for 5th Edition. Very pretty - ALL LIES

There has been much chatter and debate on the nature of the planes of existence over the centuries. Now that we can send helldozers and golden barges across the cosmos, and the brave and/or foolhardy souls who pilot them can, on occasion, safely return, we know the TRUTH.

The (Prime) Material Plane

A convergence of all four elements, with People as the ultimate expression of their confluence. Not a place of harmony, but one of such perpetual roiling imbalance as to create a perfect storm. The spearhead of reality, its potential draws the attention of the gods and its life is the purest expression of such that we can conceive (Editor's Note: grossly short-sighted but ok, sure).

Planets suspended in phlogiston, orbiting stars that extend for light-millenia in all directions. A Universe.

(not mentioned here are other dimensions, such as the plane of Faerie and several of the Hells - these exist on something of a metaphysical Z-axis, while we concern ourselves here chiefly with the X and Y of it all)

The Elemental "Planes"

Fire, air, earth, water. Not planes at all, but concepts - pure expressions of the four base realities that form the Material.

These are, contrary to the old wisdom, not Places one can Go. They are mathematical and alchemical constants, a sphere of pure existence that binds our universe.

The "Elemental" Planes

If the Material is where all four elements collide, then these are the other places within the Inner Planes in which they make contact. Pairs of concepts butting up against one another to form realities. They are remarkably similar to the Material, even if they lack all the base components.

Within each there exist areas where matter, time and space flow in such a manner to make them habitable to life as we understand it, almost like the planets of the Material realm. When we discuss the Planes, we speak of these areas specifically.

The Plane of Ash (Fire & Air)

A place of wild passion, the heat and smoke making the air unbreathable. Perhaps the least habitable of the planes - although helldozers, by complete happenstance, are ideal for traversing it.

Colour Palette: Pitch black, hellish red, vibrant orange, smoky grey.
The Wildlife: Sky-things, like fish and dragonflies. Beautiful and in a constant dance.
The Locals: Ethereal wisp-people of wild, joyful energy. Try to resist their calls to come outside.
Why Are There No Maps: Pure whim and passion without the stabilising natures of water and earth make for a directionless mess. There is no up or down here, only a whirling storm.
What Might Bring You Here: It's been suggested as less gruesome route for hellholes. Some wizards are showing up to places covered in ash rather than blood now - very hip.

The Plane of Ice (Air & Water)

A vast cold sea, almost entirely frozen. Nearly unerringly calm, its nights and days are each ages long.

Colour Palette: Blank white, cloud grey, pale blue.
The Wildlife: Transparent fish, blubbery mammals. A few slow leviathans, some city-like in scope.
The Locals: Of the blubbery, mammalian variety. Diminutive, stoic but welcoming and wistful, changing with their world while holding true to their values of community and peace. They have an almost spiritual bent, despite the lack of gods tending to their realm.
Why Are There No Maps: Floes drift, icebergs crash and change. What was considered a continent sunders overnight with a cracking sound that shakes the sky and leaves a new crevasse.
What Might Bring You Here: The Great Hunt for a legendary and gigantic beast by day, or supposed visions of cosmological truth in the lights that pass over the night sky.

The Plane of Ooze (Water & Earth)

A wet marsh of life-stuff. Organs and membranes and plant matter without drive or purpose, stagnant and resolved to do little but grow slowly and die.

Colour Palette: Jungle green, bile yellow, mud brown, gore red.
The Wildlife: Resembling that of the Material realm, but in fits and starts. Like errors of creation, stupid and pointless. So many plants, bugs, things like bacteria.
The Locals: Varied tribes of meat-plant-folk, each adapted by the cosmic joke equivalent of evolutionary luck to be driven to one thing: eat, kill, fuck, build, destroy, etc. The most agreeable are the placid majority who simply exist to exist.
Why Are There No Maps: Too complex. One would need to produce anatomical diagrams-within-diagrams in place of maps or charts on a 1:1 scale to be comprehensive enough to prove useful.
What Might Bring You Here: If a particular part of a plant or animal is needed for some reason, chances are the equivalent has been spawned by sheer randomness within this primordial soup. The locals understand living matter at its basest level and can guide you.

The Plane of Magma (Earth & Fire)

Rock and molten rock. Terrible, unbearable heat. Spires, cliffs, valleys, the only light from below.

Colour Palette: Soot black and stone brown, sun yellow and shining blood red.
The Wildlife: Of stone. Biology like engines or clockwork. Violent, hardy, quick: pick two.
The Locals: It would be a mistake to call them golems, for they are self-driven. Large, loud, passionate but unchanging. Tribal tradition, feats of bravery and strength are honoured.
Why Are There No Maps: That's just not how things are done. The only thing you need consult for direction is your own heart and the will of the elders, brother!
What Might Bring You Here: These are staunch and fierce allies to have, if allies you can make of them. Plus, enormous crystals like nowhere else are buried deep in the rare colder caves, a source of energy as yet unharnessed.

The Plane of Steam (Fire & Water)

Humid. The air endlessly thick with vapour to the point of opacity in places. Dim orange light from a hypothetical sun-like source. Evaporating pools and geysers.

Colour Palette: Coral and dull orange, mist grey, stagnant green-blue, more mist grey.
The Wildlife: Salamanders. Olms, wetfish with vestigial limbs. Macaques and balloon-beasts. Lichens and algae.
The Locals: Attractive, with an affinity for gadgets and tools - technology here is made of stone and crystal and light, rubbery worksuits made of lichen fibres. Wanderlust is common, and all are nomads or explorers.
Why Are There No Maps: They're working on it! Load a geode disc into a projector and take a look at what this explorer's got so far - a half-done map drawn in light, beamed onto the vapour in the air.
What Might Bring You Here: These are an adventuring sort - planestrotters would be in good company. Join them on an excursion, and who knows what loot may be found?

The Plane of Lightning (Earth & Air)

Like an asteroid belt in a storm cloud. Always in flux. These elements cannot find balance - welcome to the crossfire.

Colour Palette: Storm black, lightning white.
The Wildlife: Small and wary, or hardy beasts of burden. Not much of a food chain.
The Locals: Deeply mysterious. They ride the storm.
Why Are There No Maps: Yeah, good luck with that.
What Might Bring You Here: There is a strange beauty to the ensuing battle. The locals have much to teach, if you have the time and skill to learn, and the wit and luck to survive.

The Outer Planes

Beyond the inner, the Elements do not govern existence. Here dwell unknowable things: aberrations, old ones, gods.

All existence is bound in the Astral Sea, but this far out that is all that remains. This is not something a mortal mind can fully grasp. It is the stuff we dream in, the plane of the soul. A phlogiston of the ethereal, a crossing-place, a dark matter. Some call it the fifth element, quintessence, and claim it to be the birthplace of magic itself.

Better to focus on that which we can reach, for now.

The Graverobber's Guide to Gardening

I like magic to be made of actual words, rather than a set of mechanics, numbers or bonuses to this or that.

One of the many reasons for this preference is that players can read a spell description both in and out of character. The magic exists within the fiction of the world, rather than as a little meta note on a character sheet ("1d6 damage, 60ft range", that kind of thing).

Same with magic items. There are a bunch of strange plants in my world, so here's a guide to those that might be useful for the players to know about.

It's written as an in-universe artefact that players could buy in a shop, or find in a greenhouse. Also serves the added bonus of getting across worldbuilding info in a gameable context - the only way that worldbuilding ever really matters.

I'm always adding to it, so feel free to do the same.

***

THE GRAVEROBBER'S GUIDE TO GARDENING

by Pirro, amateur gardener and retired graverobber

ITEMS & TOOLS

pot golems

Little round chaps made of clay, these are handy for adventurers to plant things in. They follow you around, and protect whatever’s growing in them.

sunstone

Casts a tiny bit of light that seems to work just like sunlight. Handy for growing in dungeons or catacombs.

tajirian staff

A sanctified butterfly net. Bugs caught within it become loyal, insofar as a bug can hold allegiance, until it is next used.

wise man’s glass

Sunlight, shone through this little magnifying glass, turns to moonlight, and vice versa. Might be good for growing certain faerie plants.

PLANTS & FUNGI

boatleaf

These huge plants grow from the silt in still water. Their leaves float atop the surface and are huge and hardy enough to carry a person’s weight.

brambleroot tree

Its thorny roots lie close to the surface, animating to snare those who step over them unwillingly. Called the “flamingo tree” because of how its white leaves turn red after it feeds.

crabshell mushrooms

The cap of this fungus is round, flat and hard. Good for a makeshift shield.

follybrush

A riverside flower whose thick pollen stains the skin like dye. Traditionally used in makeup and facepaint, these days only really seen during the three Festivals of Masks.

fuillement

The pale elves of the northern woods make traditional clothing from the leaves of this plant.

gant’s root

This fiery and bitter root, when chewed, is said to allow the user to speak with spirits of the dead. Some legends vary and state that it simply keeps vengeful dead at bay, its strong flavour stopping them from sucking one’s soul out through the mouth. Either way, popular at Spirits’ March.

laddervine

Grows a foot a day, straight up a wall or surface. Climbing it is as easy as walking up stairs.

lockseed

A plant whose flower contains a key matching the lock its seed was planted in. The little plant normally takes a week to flower.

meatweed

The leaves are thick with a fleshy substance that fills them like gel fills aloe. Can be dried and made into jerky.

paddlescum

Rank in taste but nutritious, it grows like mould on stagnant water. The principle diet of trollspawn before they grow legs and emerge from their birthing ponds.

shaking vine

These dry and brittle weeds susurrate at the presence of certain magics, such as things turned invisible.

shufflers

Carnivorous plants that wander around on their roots, searching out small creatures to digest in their acidic, mouth-like flowers. Grow them, with caution, for their roots as a potion ingredient.

sweetheart plums

Woodland elves brew a wine from these fruits that functions a little like a love potion.

lumions

The unplanted bulb emits a glow, too faint to notice in daylight but such that it can be seen in pitch black darkness. (I am attempting to grow a variant that casts light like a candle flame.)

wall anemone

A strange and fibrous plant that grows in canyons. What appears to be its flower is in fact a fleshy, poisonous appendage.

wayflower

Called tournescalier by the elves, its plucked flower swivels around when held, always pointing to the nearest staircase. The flower dies and withers one hour after being picked.

PESTS & MONSTERS

bug ghosts

I don’t believe in them, but the old gnome who runs the supply shop in Last Chance sprinkles his vegetable patch with holy water every new moon, and his cabbages are flawless.

corpse bees

A grim but necessary part of gardening in dungeons. They brew crimson honey in ribcage hives. Supposedly if you can stomach it, it has healing properties.

pixie moths

The powder scales from their wings can cause everything from itchiness to drowsiness to hallucinations. Lead them away with the glint of gold instead of a flame.

tantalian slugs

They secrete a goo that increases the sensations of pain and touch. Supposedly a party piece at elven orgies. Keep the greedy beggars out of your plants with a little salt on the soil.

MYTHS & LEGENDS

almaidalance

Most legends don’t specify the myriad flowers that bloom wherever Alda, Lady of Spring, walks upon the ground. The few legends that do mention one that has never been found in reality; a white hibiscus whose petals are fine as glass. Could it really be a fiction?

divine pomme

An apple with skin like alabaster and flesh like pure gold. The dish that the great hero Kyros served to the ocean spirit Selene in the old legend that inspired the modern Sellenic Games, held biannually in Meriscella. In the modern trial, champions must bring the finest dish they can to a great feast at the end of the Games’ second week. (Once someone tried to claim they had actually found the apple, I think? It was an illusion or something.)

faerie

Not so much a legend any more as we know it’s real, but the world of the fey contains innumerable plants still not discovered! If I were still in the graverobbing business I’d happily lose myself in that place… though I suppose that’s the trick.

sweetbeard

An old dryad, the only male one and said to be the kindly king of all their kind. The sap from his luxuriant beard bolstered heroes’ strength in old tales. One of the principle servants of Cairen, Prince of Autumn, just like Selene is for Alda.

the world tree

Supposedly far beyond the eastern steppes, an enormous tree holds up the sky. Travelling rabbitfolk tell of roots like hills, and branches so big that entire forests grow on them.

Slime and Silliness

Here's me making a case, in a roundabout way, for why abject silliness has a place in your game. You can skip to the end for the D&D bits.

Our Story Begins...

In the early 1980s, Akira Toriyama, author of the popular manga serials Dragon Ball and Dr Slump, was contacted by a game developer called Yuji Horii.

Horii had won a competition by Square Enix, and along with a few other developers, had been sent to the US for a games conference. It was there that he'd learnt of the American RPG Wizardry! - a dungeon crawler which took the tropes of fantasy gaming and mixed in puns and real-world references. It was one of the first games to take D&D-style gameplay and digitise it as a video game dungeon crawler - at least, one of the first with flashy colour graphics.

Horii was smitten. He and his team of developers cooked up their own RPG, inspired by Wizardry!'s gameplay, fantasy world and sense of humour. Toriyama had already combined an epic fantasy quest with puns and slapstick in his Dragon Ball series, and agreed to come on board the video game project as a character designer.

Father vs Son

A few years after Horii's new game, Dragon Quest, was released to huge sales and critical acclaim, a translation of Wizardry! came to Japanese shores. It received modest success, even going on to become more popular in Japan than it was back home in the States. It still fell short of its spiritual successor. Far short.

Dragon Quest is the most popular video game franchise in Japan. It's up there with Mario and Pokemon, and is considered the national video game of the country. There are themed bars and cafes. Kids got arrested in the hundreds for truancy the one time a Dragon Quest game was released on a school day (they've stuck to Saturdays since). When I was there last year, stores that didn't even sell video games had little placards and posters up, reminding everyone that a new instalment in the series was on its way.

Dragon Quest's gameplay, at least in the first instalment, wasn't too dissimilar from Wizardry!. Horii had made sure of it - he wanted to emulate the game in almost every aspect, such was his delight with the concept. On paper, there was almost nothing to distinguish the two, other than that Dragon Quest was on the more family-friendly Famicom console.

There was one more problem with Wizardry! in Japan, though: the translation had failed to preserve any of the jokes. The Japanese audience didn't mind - it was a fine game on its own, and they didn't know any better. But with its humourous streak lost, it just couldn't compete with Dragon Quest.

Monsters and Madness

Art by Parker Simmons (@parkerrsimmons)

While Wizardry! had you fighting dragons and skeletons, Dragon Quest mixed in all sorts of silly critters. Toriyama's trademark playful style brought a sense of the ridiculous to every enemy in the game - even a simple armoured knight becomes a chunky cartoon lump with trademark Toriyama shoulder pads.

The design wasn't the only thing that brought a sense of fun to the fantasy. Dragon Quest games are full of puns and jokes, to a level that Wizardry! never dreamed of. Mercifully, this sense of humour has survived the translation back into English - the team that translates the series have done a fantastic job preserving the nonsense.

A few examples spring to mind - maybe my favourite is Abbot Jack, who runs Alltrades Abbey, a temple in one game where characters can change their Job (Class). Jack of Alltrades, of course, turns out to be host to a terrible demon: the Master of None. Or there are the monster names - they don't have weretigers like in D&D, instead they have weartigers - demons in tiger onesies. The huge mythical sea beast that lives off the coast of a town where everyone speaks in Welsh accents is called Lleviathan.

Dragon Quest is not a comedy series. These are well-crafted and expertly balanced RPG games, and later instalments have some of the most memorable stories and characters in any video game series. The pervasive sense of fun is just what elevates it all to something greater.

The Slime

The Slime. Look at that lil face!

Dragon Quest's mascot, as designed by Akira Toriyama, is the Slime. The creature is everywhere in Japan - he has toys, collectables, merchandise, food products, even his own spin-off game series. The only official controller Sony have ever released for the PS4, other than the default Dualshock, is shaped like one of these idiots. Ask a Japanese child... hell, ask any Japanese person to draw "slime", don't even mention Dragon Quest - they'll draw that little dumping-shaped doofus.

The Slime is the first creature you fight in the original Dragon Quest, and serves a similar purpose in every subsequent game. It's a weak, low-level monster that doesn't do much more than get in your way and force you to learn how the battle system works. There are other slime variant that show up later that might present more of a challenge, but this guy is happy where he is: as a weak, pathetic blob of goop with a gormless grin and nothing much else.

He's fun, and that's all he needs to be to be one of the most famous monsters in gaming.

Start Talking About D&D or I'm Out of Here

There we go. Familiar territory.

The Gelatinous Cube is one of the most famous of D&D's original monsters. There are few veteran dungeon crawlers who don't have at least one tale of wandering a suspiciously clean corridor in some underground lair, or seeing a skeleton floating seemingly in space before the dreaded ooze attacks.

The Cube, along with the Rust Monster and the Rug of Smothering, come from the Gygaxian School of Fuck You, That's Why. These are creatures specifically designed to trick and trip up players who think that they know everything, or that they're safe, or that they've worked out how to beat the dungeon.

This is... not a fun way to play, for most of us. But it sure did give us some iconic monsters.

Get to the Point

Dragon Quest's monsters are dumb, fun silly cartoons. Toriyama's idea of a Chimera is a fat snake with a goose's head. But they want to kill you.

The Gelatinous Cube - or the Owlbear, or a bunch of other WotC IPs, are stupid. They're weird little beasts imagined up by a man who wanted to fuck his players over so much that he wrote backstory for a bag of knock-off dinosaur toys and used them as minis, so they wouldn't be able to predict what was coming. They're stupid monsters. But they want to kill you.

It doesn't matter how nonsensical the concept is. Try explaining to an Owlbear that it's actually more cute than scary. It's just gonna keep trying to rip your character's face off. You'd better learn how to kill that adorable Slime, or it's going to kill you. The fight is still the same as it would be with any other monster - get rid of their HP, hold on to yours. It's just more fun when you and your friends are all cracking up about the demon in a onesie.

The most bizarre, the most ridiculous, the most laughable parts of your game are probably the best parts. They'll certainly be among the most memorable.

You're all sitting around rolling dice and pretending to be other people. If you can't laugh, what hope is left for you?

Plug Time

Art by Nicoletta Migaldi

In the spirit of the inherent silliness of the Slime, here's a thing I made. Content for your 5th Edition game, but easy enough to convert to other systems.

9 monsters, 4 spells and a playable race - all slime.

It's pay-what-you-want, and you can get it right here.

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EDIT: A corollary! One thing I didn't mention, lest I began writing an article about Dragon Quest rather than TRPGs, is just how much DQ has influenced the entire fantasy genre in Japan. Mainstream depictions of fantasy in cartoons, comics, films, and especially other games to this day owe a huge debt to Toriyama's work. So, by extension, there's a big D&D flavour in the modern Japanese fantasy genre (because, y'know: D&D >> Wizardry! >> Dragon Quest >> everything after).

That even comes back on itself on occasion. Check this article out, with the official Japanese printing of the Rules Cyclopedia for old-school D&D. See the little hat on the cleric, the whole look of the clothing, the Shoulder Pads? That's straight up Toriyama. Pretty cool!

Bug Wizard

Every Wizard cantrip and 1^st Level Spell in 5^th Edition, reflavoured into bugs. I like the idea of someone with swarms of bugs living on them, plus I like giving examples of just how easy it is to reflavour things in RPGs.

Cantrips

Acid Splash: A big, bulbous bug that splats itself against the target.
Blade Ward: Armoured insects crawl all over you.
Chill Touch: An oversized, black mosquito.
Dancing Lights: Fireflies.
Fire Bolt: A vermillion wasp with a stinger of white-hot metal.
Friends: Butterflies dance about you, pinkish powder falling from their wings.
Light: A little fat glow-worm.
Mage Hand: A particularly dextrous dragonfly.
Mending: Ants swarm all over the object and fix it up.
Message: A fly shoots over to the target, relays your message, and returns with a response.
Minor Illusion: Put a beetle on your tongue and your thoughts turn into sound and image.
Poison Spray: A big stinkbug's fart.
Prestidigitation: A spider on the back of your hand bites down, now your hand has powers.
Ray of Frost: A hairy bug with a freezing bite.
Shocking Grasp: Centipedes on your hand deliver the shock through their mandibles.
True Strike: A moth whispers the enemy’s secrets in your ear.

1^st Level

Alarm: Little insects lie in wait and report intruders.
Burning Hands: Crush a little red ant in your palms, then spread your hands.
Charm Person: Crickets play music in and around your words.
Chromatic Orb: A bunch of jewel beetles, all different colours.
Color Spray: A butterfly’s dazzling wings project the light.
Comprehend Languages: Eat a worm.
Detect Magic: More moths whispering secrets.
Disguise Self: Crush a beetle and brush the powder in a symbol on your forehead.
Expeditious Retreat: Ant swarms underfoot.
False Life: Eat an earwig.
Feather Fall: Butterflies hold you up as you descend.
Find Familiar: A little pentagram on the floor, a black beetle sacrificed in the centre.
Fog Cloud: A fat bluebottle explodes into bluish cloud.
Grease: Slug goop.
Identify: How do these moths know all these secrets?
Illusory Script: The ink is crushed beetle ichor.
Jump: Eat the spell’s listed material component.
Longstrider: A bug’s mandibles bite you, then you rip off the body and leave the dying head.
Mage Armour: Millipedes in your clothes.
Magic Missile: The vengeful ghosts of bugs from previous spells.
Protection from Evil and Good: Little bees with unnatural patterns bumble around your head.
Ray of Sickness: A bug with a poisonous bite.
Shield: A cicada’s carapace, animated with magic, takes hits for you.
Silent Image: Swallow a certain beetle, without chewing.
Sleep: Clouds of dust left behind from a giant butterfly’s wings.
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: A crane fly whispers something in the target’s ear.
Tenser’s Floating Disk: Flying ants form a raft like red ants do in water.
Thunderwave: Crush a bug in your hand, only the sound is somehow amplified hugely.
Unseen Servant: Helpful bug ghosts.
Witch Bolt: A flurry of locusts swarm unending from your sleeve.